Background
Doe Run started life in 1864 as the St. Joseph Lead Company, better known as St. Joe, which started lead mining on a small scale in southeastern Missouri. Despite the isolation and hardships of those days it prospered and in 1892 it started up its smelter in Herculaneum, where all smelting was consolidated in 1920. It was active elsewhere and eventually owned mines (now disposed of) in South America and zinc operations in New York State, USA. It also built up a portfolio of gold mines and prospects, including Chile's largest gold mine, El Indio, which became St. Joe Gold. It was sold in the 1980s and is now part of Barrick Gold.
With the gradual exhaustion of the Old Lead Belt after World War II, St. Joe and others explored other areas in southeastern Missouri and found more lead/zinc deposits, including the extensive Viburnum Trend on which Doe Run's U.S. mining operations are now concentrated.
In 1981, St. Joe was acquired by the Fluor Corporation. In 1986 St. Joe and Homestake Lead formed a short lived partnership called the Doe Run Company which brought Homestake's Buick mine, mill and smelter into St. Joe. After dissolution of the partnership, St. Joe converted the Buick smelter for lead recycling, which grew to be the biggest single site facility in the world. In 1994 the Renco Group acquired St. Joe from Fluor and renamed the company the Doe Run Resources Corporation, registered to do business as the Doe Run Company.
In 1994 Doe Run acquired lead fabricating facilities and in 1997 it more than doubled in size with the purchase of the La Oroya smelter and Cobriza copper mine in Peru. 1998 saw the acquisition of ASARCO's Missouri Lead Division and its two mines and mills.
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